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Seeds is an acronym that stands for Sustaining Environmental and Educational Development at Source. Our Seeds program was created to structure and define Counter Culture's monetary contributions to projects that are not coffee-quality-specific but still benefit our coffee-producing partners and their communities. To date, we have contributed a total of $24,963 to projects in 6 countries. We'd like to catch you up on the projects we have funded over the last couple of years through our Seeds program with an eye toward more regular updates of ongoing projects.

This Seeds project was unique in that Counter Culture initiated it as a way to address our carbon offsets. In 2009 we set the goal to reach carbon neutrality in 5 years. This project allowed us to reach neutrality in just 2 years!

The high level of involvement and organization from both the partner non-governmental organization (NGO) and the cooperative on the ground made this an ideal project. Preliminary meetings were held with the cooperative leadership, a local development NGO, and US-based Trees, Water & People to develop the most effective plan. In two short weeks, 86 stoves were built by local specialists and cooperative members. Over the lifespan of these stoves, 645 tons of carbon dioxide will be avoided. In total, 626 family members of COMSA producers will benefit from cleaner indoor air and more disposable income, and they will use less than half of the wood required by their previous cook stoves.

We won't know the long-term results until health impact measures are taken over time. However, the initial reports sent to us from COMSA and Trees, Water & People were thorough, and we feel confident that they will continue to pursue greater metrics and inform us when they have additional details.

Today marks the last update on Seeds projects of years past. Thanks for following along for these installments. At the end of January, we will begin accepting applications for our next funding cycle of Seeds projects. As new projects are completed, we will continue to report back on impact at origin and lessons learned. Please don't hesitate to be in touch with comments, questions, or suggestions!

Click here to see this photo set on Flickr.
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